Boston duo known as the Dresden Dolls perform what they call "Brechtian Punk Cabaret," a com- bination of Weimar-era German histrionics and gritty rock-and-roll ferocity. KNITTING FACTORY 74 Leonard St., between Broadway and Church St. (212-219-3055)-Feb. 8: A night of African hip- hop with Shiffai (from Senegal), Dola (from Tan- zania), and Chosan (from Sierra Leone). Feb. 9-10: The guitarist Chris Whitley. LIVING ROO 154 Ludlow St. (212-533-7235)-Feb. 6: Mindy Smith, a fresh-faced young singer-songwriter, may have been born and raised on Long Island, but her voice comes straight out of the heartland. "Jo- lene," her contribution to last year's Dolly Par- ton tribute album, "JUSt Because I'm a Woman," earned accolades from Parton herself (she called it her favorite version of the song). In the great post-Norah Jones sweepstakes, the smart money is on Smith, whose début album, "One Mo- ment More," was released last week on Vanguard Records. ERCURY LOUNGE 217 E. Houston St. (212-260-4700)-Feb. 5-6: Chicago's OK Go cranks out clever and exuberant guitar pop destined to move even the most jaded. TONIC 107 Norfolk St. (212-358-7503)-Feb. 5: The New York sextet Melomane crafts intricate pop songs with chamber-music flourishes. Feb. 8: Hannah Marcus is a local singer and composer who travels in a strange but inviting country of her own making. On her latest album, "Desert Farmers," she en- listed members of the Canadian collective God- speed You! Black Emperor. Also performing is the multitalented singer LD Beghtol, of the chamber- pop band Flare and, occasionally, Magnetic Fields. '.' ''t dreas, who possesses what a whole lot of cabaret singers would kill for: a fabulous voice. She also has style, theatrical flair, and charisma. LE JAZZ AU BAR 41 E. 58th St. (212-308-9455)-The seemingly eternal West Side night club broadens its offerings with a new name and a jazz series. The inaugural performer is Dee Dee Bridgewater, whose 2002 album, "This Is New," revitalized the work of Kurt Weill, bnnging rhythmic moxie and a warm spirit to everything from "Alabama Song" to "Septem- ber Song." Bridgewater won a Tony for her work in "The Wiz," and she has everything going for her except superstardom. She's here Feb. 3-7. JAZZ GALLERY 290 Hudson St., near Spring St. (212-242-1063)- Feb. 7: If you know the bassist Reggie Workman only from his sixties stints with Coltrane and Blakey, you don't really know him. This still-bruising player thinks big; his Ashanti Message band brings to- gether music, dance, and theatre, and, to please the diehards, a touch of Coltrane. JAZZ STANDARD 116 E. 27th St. (212-576-2232)-Feb. 5-8: The pi- anist Lynne Arriale is an underappreciated stylist who has an intimate rapport with her trio mates, the bassist Jay Anderson and the drummer Steve Davis. SWEET RHYTHM 88 Seventh Ave. 5., at Bleecker St. (212-255- 3626)-Feb. 6-7: The John Tropea band. If the spiky guitar solo on Eumir Deodato's 1972 hit "Also Sprach Zarathustra (Theme from 2001)" has a place in your heart, thank Tropea, a ubiqui- tous studio presence during the "me" decade, who has been little heard from since then. VILLAGE VANGUARD 178 Seventh Ave. S., at 11th St. (212-255-4037)- Through Feb. 8: On his new album, "Strange I \ .... '\ \ L .'\'\ " ;-< ; \' , i1.,- ,-', , ' y, I,( '" . Q , IT '-I ) J-: " l___ :: I ./ ,"",--, - ::::- -< "" '" - -- , I ........... f -Jl I -- - il ---------- AT The Big Six lounge in Chinatown is a cosmopolitan taste of the Far East. JAZZ AND STANDARDS BIRDLAND 315 W. 44th St. (212-581-3080)-Feb. 4-7: The trio of the pianist Paul Bley, the bassist Gary Pea- cock, and the drummer Paul Motian may not play together on a regular basis, but you'd never know it from their uncanny musical telepathy. BLUE NOTE 131 W. 3rd St., near Sixth Ave. (212-475-8592)- Through Feb. 8: Jeff (Tain) Watts is a drummer who answers to an extroverted muse. He's played with both Wynton and Branford Marsalis, and continues to be the most in-demand percussionist of his generation. The saxophonist Kenny Garrett w is his guest soloist. CARLYLE HOTEL f2 Madison Ave. at 76th St. (212-744-1600)-The z Café Carlyle, a snug, windowless enclave in the doorman district, features discreet waiters, wrap- around murals, and, starting Feb. 3, Christine An- Liberation," the trumpeter Dave Douglas added the guitarist Bill Frisell to his hybrid electric/ acoustic quintet. The bad news is that Frisell won't be making this gig, but you can expect sparks anyway. The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra holds sway on Mondays. ART MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES ETROPOLITAN USEU Fifth Ave. at 82nd St. (212-879-5500)- The name Chuck Close instantly conjures images of giant grid- ded portraits, tight and deadpan in Photo-Realist black-and-white in the seventies, with more recent versions dissolving in loose lozenges of color. "Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration" shows that all the portraiture of self and others went along with constant experiments in the practice of print- making. Etching, silk screen, linoleum and wood- block prints, and hand-constructed pulp-paper mul- tiples are tracked through various proof states, and actual woodblocks, etched copper panels, and other studio paraphernalia also appear. The show is as much a primer in the printmaker's art as it is a ret- rospective of Close faces. Through Apri] L8. (Open Tuesdays through Sundays, 9:30 to 5:30, and Fri- day and Saturday evenings until 9.) USEU OF ODERN ART ( O A 9NS) 33rd St. at Queens Blvd., Long Island City (212- 708-9400)-"Kiki Smith: Prints, Books & Things" shows off a compendium of the artist's favored im- ages: eyes, breasts, birds, babies, cats, Little Red Riding Hood, and the starry sky. Although she's pri- marily a sculptor, this retrospective of works on paper and fabric make it clear that her three- dimensional thinking is deeply influenced by the etchings, artist's books, and even Xeroxes collected here. The range of works is impressive, from Smith's first experiments with silk screen in the eighties to the beautiful "Blue Feet," a series of drypoints and etchings made last year, and they reveal a side of her that's quick, funny, luscious, and fragile. Through March 8. (Open Thursdays through Mondays, 10 to 5, and Friday evenings until 7:45.) GUGGENHEI USEU Fifth Ave. at 89th St. (212-423-3500)-"Boc- cioni's Materia: A Futurist Masterpiece and the Avant-Garde in Milan and Paris-" Opens Feb. 6. (Open Saturdays through Wednesdays, 10 to 5:45, and Fridays, 10 to 8.) WHITNEY USEU OF A ERICAN ART Madison Ave. at 75th St. (212-570-3676)-The sparkling mid-career painting retrospective "John Currin" should be this season's major conversa- tion piece. Topic: how have super-old-fashioned, al- ternately academic- and schlocky-Iooking figure paintings become the bee's knees in contemporary art? Currin's mostly imagined winsome nudes, pa- thetic males society dames gay couples, and oh yes, women with breasts as big as the Ritz make everybody nervous in one way or another. They also display phenomenal degrees of skill and subtleties of expression. Once you start looking at Currin's stuff, it's all you can do to stop. Through Feb. 22. . "fu- shile Gorky: A Retrospective of Drawings." Through Feb. 15. . "Unrepentant Ego: The Self-Portraits of Lucas Samaras." Through Feb. 8. (Open Wednes- days through Thursdays, and weekends, 11 to 6, and Fridays, 1 to 9.) GALLERIES-UPTOWN Unless otherwise noted, galleries are open Tuesdays through Saturdays from around 10 or 11 to between 5 and 6. VINCENT DESIDERIO Desiderio wears his influences on his sleeve, or em- beds them in his canvases. "Contemplative Dis- tance " a triptych that depicts two mentally disabled men, nods to the character studies of Géricault. "Cockaigne ' is a sublime mess of dirty dishes and a floor covered with hundreds of art-history books lying open-a name-that-painting game that in- cludes van der Weyden, Manet, Ingres, Goya, and other monuments from Art History 101. "An Alle- gory of Painting" updates the artist-in-the-studio antics of Vermeer and Courbet, among others, with the painter holding a sick child in his lap: it reads as allegory (painting in progress) and autobiography (his own son suffers from the effects of a stroke). Through Feb. 7. (Marlborough, 40 W. 57th St. 212-541-4900.) PAULA HAYES The playfully titled "Forest" is really a room full of ferns, evergreens, palms, and succulents. The plants are potted in biomorphic silicone containers ar- ranged around the room on blond wood pedestals; they look like Brancusi sculptures filled with dirt and sprouting a few leaves. Hayes also experiments with a mulch-type material made from recycled tires, which she's scattered at the base of one planter and used to create a design in the yard behind the gallery (more visible when the snow clears). Three psyche- delic drawings of characters called Shoomu and Jill Poet feature human heads in profile sprouting up THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 9, 2004 II